


19 years

by happyhannie



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: 3 shot if that is a thing, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Changlix if you squint, Happy Ending, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, a bit of angst, everyone is here but jeongin sorry sweetie, kinda cute according to my sister, lapslock, seungjin if you squint, woochan if you have a microscope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-02-29 16:43:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18782140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/happyhannie/pseuds/happyhannie
Summary: it had been for 19 years that jisung had waited for a sign of his soulmates existence and had got nothing in return.





	1. jisung

it had been for 19 years that jisung had waited for a sign of his soulmates existence and had got nothing in return. honestly, he’d given up. everyone always told him that maybe his soulmate just wasn’t ready to write back yet or maybe he spoke another language so he didn’t know what to write. it couldn’t be that. jisung had spent hours inking every possible part of his skin in every language listed on google translate just in bleak hope that someday someone might write back. nothing ever happened.

his friends had been partnered up, although most of the people his age had by now. it was extremely rare that you would reach the age of 19 without finding your soulmate but jisung was certain that he was one of the rarities. take changbin and felix for example: felix couldn’t speak a word of korean nor could changbin speak in english but all throughout their lives they communicated with drawings, just silly cartoons or hearts to let each other know that they were there and alive. jisung vividly remembered when changbin woke up to an entire korean paragraph written in perfect grammar from felix writing of how he would be in korea soon and he wanted to meet. obviously jisung was ecstatic for his best friend but he could feel the desperate longing in his heart only grow stronger. 

it was 6th march of jisung’s 19th year when he finally gave up. he wrote ‘i love you’ up his arm in as many languages as he had memorised by now along with a few drawings that he had perfected of hearts and flowers and he decided that that was it. it seemed stupid that it had taken him so long to finally give up and stop trying, stop searching, stop clinging on to the last drops of hope that fell with his tears. why him? why was he the person without a soulmate? why had the earth treated him so cruelly?

his mood changed along with his efforts. when changbin and felix greeted him as he stepped onto campus on a thursday afternoon he simply flashed them a quick fake smile and walked straight to his seat. it was as if the happy and lively jisung had died along with his hopes of ever finding his true love. 

as seven days passed and nothing happened, jisung began to feel less of the peace and sadness that he had felt throughout the week and replaced the feelings with anger. if his soulmate was out there seeing his distraught messages that were being etched on to his skin then it was cruel to not give jisung even a sign that he was at least alive. even if he didn’t believe in the soulmate system, even if he rejected the whole idea, even if he had found someone that was in love with already and he didn’t want to lose them, jisung just wanted something, anything so that he could feel as though the world hasn’t failed him. 

nothing came.

so as more days passed and the last remnants of permanent marker found their way off jisung’s skin, he simply felt resigned. he was resigned to the fact that there really was no one for him. all of the cliche movies that he had sat through with changbin as a child, whilst the elder happily drew back to felix, would never come true for him. 

he wrote his letter of giving up on his arm. 

 

_‘dear soulmate,_

_if you exist and are reading this, i’m slightly mad at you. you’re supposed to be someone i can count on and someone who can make me happy when i’m so impossibly sad but really you’re doing the opposite. this is my letter to tell you that i’m going to stop trying which is probably what you want. after all, i am upon this earth to make you happy, so if i can do that by leaving you alone for the rest of our lives then i will._

_if in the future you regret this and want to give me a sign i’ll be here, hopelessly waiting for whatever small speck of hope you might want to give me. i won’t ever fall in love with someone that isn’t you whether i’m writing this upon the skin of a corpse or the skin of a man who is breathing, my heart is yours for as long as it beats and for ever after._

_sadly yours forever,  
jisung.’ _

 

after re-reading the letter etched on his arm, jisung pulled up his covers and fell asleep with thoughts of what could have been. 

the best day of his life came two days later when he was in the studio with changbin. it had gotten quite warm that day so to cool down, jisung took off his jacket and stretched his arms out, that was when something caught his eye. 

the letter that he had written had rubbed off yesterday when he had showered but it wasn’t impossible that there wasn’t some permanent marker that hadn’t stained his skin. jisung brought his wrist to his face to closer inspect the writing and as soon as his vision cleared he fell into what felt like a state of pure euphoria.

 

_i’m here, i need you, i love you, i’m sorry, please don’t leave me alone_

 

inscribed in tiny letters upon his wrist written in his soulmates handwriting, an apology, a confession, a sign. jisung couldn’t stop the flow of tears that swarmed from his eyes as changbin watched him in utter confusion.

“sungie wha-“

“a pen hyung, a pen please give me a pen,” jisung spoke and changbin’s eyes widened as he scrambled to grab the nearest one.

jisung wrote at lightning speed with very little care about his handwriting, none of it mattered, his soulmate was alive and he loved him. jisung didn’t know what to write as he put the pen to his wrist and scribbled the first things that came to his head.

 

_i won’t ever leave you, i love you so much, please never leave me, i can’t live without you, please stay with me, i love you too and i need you too_

 

jisung put the lid back on the pen as he stared in awe at the words on his arm. he barely believed that it had happened. all of his life had been spent searching for just one sign that his soulmate was alive and he finally got one. he loved him, his soulmate loved him.


	2. minho

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> life from minho’s perspective

for 20 years, lee minho had been told that the soulmate system was evil, it had been evident from his parents that love simply didn’t exist. every family member rejected the system so naturally, minho did too. 

there was no ink on his body for his first few years, minho couldn’t remember the exact date it started but he guessed that he was around 6 years old when he got the first message, a really badly spelt and written ‘hello’. looking back on it now, he couldn’t remember if his heart had sunk or soared when he had found the message on his arm, all he remembered was his mother hurriedly covering it with her foundation through glassy eyes. 

it had only gotten worse since then. 

when he was 10, his soulmate had wrote ‘hi soulmate, are you dead?’ and at the time minho had laughed but now it broke his heart to think about. this was a person, someone who he had slowly broken, someone who was destined to be his. 

when he was 13, his best friend found his soulmate and by god, minho had never seen a happier person than the day that hyunjin met seungmin and the writing on their hands matched. he’d watched the two over the years that followed as they’d fallen into the deepest of loves and he’d seen both of their looks of pity every time he would come into school with messages covered up by his mother’s foundation. 

at 15, minho cried for the first time because of his soulmate. the day before, his soulmate had written that his best friend had found their soulmate and that he was from australia and didn’t respond because he couldn’t speak korean and when minho awoke the next morning, i love you was written up his arm listed in every single language that minho could possibly think up and infinitely more. upon seeing this and thinking of how much his soulmate must be breaking inside, minho cried. he sobbed so hard that he could barely breathe as he thought about the person who was made for him, the person who loved him although they didn’t even know he was alive, the person who was willing to be there for him even though they had been neglected for so many years and minho almost felt like grabbing a pen and scribbling ‘i love you’ on every part of his body but he couldn’t. 

this happened multiple times throughout the next few years, along with other cute messages, it wasn’t uncommon for minho to see the same three words in multiple languages written up his arm. it seemed that his soulmate had perfected this by now and minho swore that if he had been in their situation, he would’ve given up but an increasingly larger part of him was infinitely glad that they didn’t. 

when he reached 20 and every single person he knew had found their soulmate, the writing from his got less frequent and minho knew that his soulmate must have presumed him dead by now. often, small drawings would be accompanied with pleas of ‘please just write back if you’re alive’ or ‘i love you please just give me a sign anything’. his heart felt as if it broke more and more with every word. 

minho was out with his friends, hyunjin, seungmin, chan and woojin when he found two large but faded paragraphs on the inside of his arm. he pulled his sleeve up and turned his arm over and ignored the shocked looks on the faces of his friends as he began to read the message to himself. 

 

_dear soulmate,_

_if you exist and are reading this, i’m slightly mad at you. you’re supposed to be someone i can count on and someone who can make me happy when i’m so impossibly sad but really you’re doing the opposite. this is my letter to tell you that i’m going to stop trying which is probably what you want. after all, i am upon this earth to make you happy, so if i can do that by leaving you alone for the rest of our lives then i will._

_if in the future you regret this and want to give me a sign i’ll be here, hopelessly waiting for whatever small speck of hope you might want to give me. i won’t ever fall in love with someone that isn’t you whether i’m writing this upon the skin of a corpse or the skin of a man who is breathing, my heart is yours for as long as it beats and for ever after._

_sadly yours forever,  
jisung. _

 

minho’s heart began to race as panic set in and his eyes skimmed over and over the words as they rapidly filled up with tears. he grabbed his bag and began to fumble through it as he ignored the concerned and shocked looks he was receiving from his friends, “a pen, please somebody just give me a pen,” he sobbed, “please.”

hyunjin instantly grabbed a pen from his pocket and passed it over to minho who brought it up to his wrist and in his panicked state barely thought through what he was going to write before writing it, 

 

_i’m here, i need you, i love you, i’m sorry, please don’t leave me alone’._

 

when he had written this, his sobs overtook him as he collapsed sideways onto chan who took him into his arms. his other friends looked on with a weird sense of pride, worry and pity as they watched minho become a victim of his cruel upbringing, the system wasn’t supposed to be rejected and minho was a hopeless romantic, they only wished that now he could find the person who was made for him. 

it took another two minutes for the boy to find another message upon his wrist, it was hurriedly scrawled and smudged but minho didn’t care, its words were all that mattered to him 

 

_‘i won’t ever leave you, i love you so much, please never leave me, i can’t live without you, please stay with me, i love you too and i need you too’._

 

minho smiles gleefully at the message as his tears still fell down his face and he looked up to meet hyunjin’s gaze. “he still loves me,” he croaked out before laughing slightly, “jisung,” he tested the name on his lips, “why does he still love me?”

“you’re made for each other hyung, he’s meant to love you through anything so he has,” hyunjin replied with a bright smile and minho nodded before sinking back into his seat and re reading the words on his arm.

_‘i won’t ever leave you, i love you so much, please never leave me, i can’t live without you, please stay with me, i love you too and i need you too’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading this!!! i hope you enjoyed it!! the final chapter will be posted tomorrow :))


	3. stay together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> when two souls come together

it had been hard for both boys to communicate from then on with the fact that they had to hide any writing from minho’s mom. yet minho had opened up to jisung much more and jisung had attempted to understand him. the elder simply hated himself for all of the pain he had caused to jisung over the many years he’d held back. 

at first they learnt small things, jisung had learnt minho’s name and they’d discovered each other’s ages through scribbles that they would wash off almost as soon as they had been written. jisung swore to do anything to help minho keep their love a secret from his mother and the elder simply couldn’t thank him enough. it seemed that jisung truly understood him through and through and minho could truly see why they were fated to be together, the younger was the puzzle piece that minho never realised he was missing. 

nights and nights were spent with minho writing about how his heart slowly broke more and more every time he would see jisung’s hand writing on his skin. every declaration of love from the younger had sent a pang through his heart throughout his whole life. he wrote of the influence from his parents and family and his mother’s foundation and the pity in hyunjin’s eyes whenever he spoke of it and his perception that this was normal. jisung’s heart sank with every word and whenever he wrote back with words of pity and sorrow minho’s guilt grew.

every time minho would write of this, jisung would counter it and write back to him of how he would have loved him for his entire life even if they had never spoke. the elder felt his heart bloom at the thought that there was someone out there who loved him so deeply as jisung did. he almost felt as if he didn’t deserve it, all of the pain that he had put jisung through had amounted to nothing and the boy loved him just the same. it was unthinkable. 

minho shared this with hyunjin who simply offered him a knowing look but never spoke the words ‘i told you so’. almost everyone knew how hard it had been for minho to write back to jisung in the first place and although they could never quite empathise with him fully, they understood him. minho never hated the soulmate system, he was simply forbidden from it. explaining this to jisung was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do.

they had spent the next few months trying to put a face to each other’s name. jisung drew little pictures of himself which were fifteen times better than the ones that minho drew in return. it was jisung’s bright idea that meant that they wouldn’t have to imagine anymore.

so they learnt each other’s faces through pictures, minho had scrawled hyunjin’s address onto his arm and jisung had scrawled his and they had sent pictures and hand written letters to each other. jisung looked nothing like minho had expected but he was infinitely better, the younger was literally the boy of minho’s dreams and there was no doubt left in minho’s mind that they were made for each other. 

jisung felt the same. upon seeing minho’s face it was like everything he’d ever dreamed of and so much more. he could finally put a face to someone who he had imagined since the day he learnt of what a soulmate was, the picture was put in a frame and placed on his night stand. jisung couldn’t even comprehend the idea of meeting minho in the flesh. 

for minho this went different, he kept the small photo hidden in his phone case so that jisung was always with him but his mother wouldn’t know. the younger’s photo was minho’s most treasured possession and he used it to brighten his mood and motivate him when he was in his darkest times. the idea of seeing jisung in reality, however, seemed a world away. it was practically impossible.

the day came when they didn’t expect it, jisung was accompanying changbin to see felix at his dance show and teams from all over the city were in attendance. they sat backstage whilst felix warmed up and talked to a few of his team members. jisung and changbin were ultimately uninterested at this point and they sat on their phones scrolling through their respective social medias. it was boring to say the least but jisung wanted to be a good friend and support both felix and changbin so he stuck it out.

just as they were about to move into the theatre, jisung looked up for a moment on instinct when he heard the door open and it was surely the best decision that he had ever made. 

his breath caught in his throat as he struggled to get the words out and the boy by the door didn’t notice him until he raised his voice, “minho?” 

the elder’s head whipped around to face the corner and his eyes grew wide as they rested upon jisung. he threw caution to the wind and raced to the younger who stood up and began moving towards him. the room felt like it fell silent as they finally met and stood in front of each other, jisung launched himself into minho’s arms with tears already falling from his eyes and minho gladly caught him and held on to him so tightly he feared he’d never be able to let go. 

when they finally pulled back, they got the chance to see each other in reality for the first time, minho felt the tears streaming down his cheeks and his face matched that of his soulmate. his soulmate who was stood in front of him staring back at him as if he was the single most beautiful and important thing in the world. 

“jisungie, i love you so much,” minho choked out and jisung latched on to the words that he never thought he would hear. 

“i love you too, so so much,” jisung rested his head on minho’s shoulder as he wrapped his arms around the elder again. minho lay soft kisses to the younger boys head and the world finally seemed as if it was moving again and jisung had everything he had ever wanted. his soulmate right here in his arms declaring his love for him. it was everything he thought he’d never have. 

when reality phased back in and they were met with loud cheers from the room around them, minho found himself blushing a bright red and jisung’s smile grew as he stared back at the elder unapologetically. it was unexpected but that day quickly became the best of jisung’s 19 years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to everyone who has read this far! it honestly means the world to me that anyone would even click on this!! thank you so much!! 
> 
> if you want you can yell at me on twitter @happyhanjisung uwu!!

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading this so far! the next two chapters will be out in the next two days so please look forward to it!! i hope you enjoyed this!!


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